12/15/00 -- Rare Forest Under Threat

Rare Forest Under Threat

A rare camelthorn forest in the southern Kalahari is being threatened by the large-scale collection of dead wood under contract, claim outraged experts.?

The 2 200ha Khai Appel Nature Reserve near Kathu, in the Northern Cape, is home to one of only two camelthorn forests in Southern Africa, and has been declared a Natural Heritage Site. Currently about 1?000 bundles of dead wood " including black thorn and camelthorn, which is a protected species " are being removed every day to be sold as firewood, according to labourers on the project.

The reserve is owned by Iscor, which operates the Sishen iron-ore mine nearby. The Iscor subsidiary responsible said this week it was considering cancelling the contract, which is with a local entrepreneur.? World-renowned ornithologist Dr Richard Liversidge is enraged by the contract since he believes he has discovered a new bird species that appears only to occur in the forest.

He says the wood collection is damaging the bird's environment and endangering the future of the forest as a whole.

"This is a special island habitat that must be preserved," he said this week.

"Removing the dead wood affects the whole ecology of the area. The insects, spiders, centipedes, lizards, mice and several bird species get their food out of this dead wood " it's part of the food chain.?

"My interest in this unique and very special habitat has arisen through my investigation into a new undescribed species of bird, which I have only seen within the reserve. It's a yellow form of the Melba Finch. It's very easy to identify, but it's obviously a very small population " trying to find it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. But I'm confident that we'll get a DNA test on it next year and publish it as a new species."?

In 1996 Liversidge was responsible for the identification of the long-tailed pipit, a new species.

University of Stellenbosch Professor Sue Milton, an expert on camelthorn trees, agrees with Liversidge that the removal of the dead wood could have serious consequences.

"They're removing about 3?000kg a day " which is probably equivalent to about three large trees. Trees are being removed faster than they're growing.

"They have an unusually high number of dead trees in the reserve, but we must look at why this is. One reason could be the dust from the mines, another could be the herbicide that has been applied there to kill the black thorn trees [an invasive Acacia].

"I would like to see a management plan for that area that includes looking at the animals, the feasibility and methods of clearing black thorn, the percentage of dead wood being cleared and a plan for large individual trees to be left.

"We need selected removal rather than blanket removal."

Until the end of October a committee including municipal officials and Iscor employees managed the reserve, but this responsibility was passed on to Ferroland, an Iscor subsidiary, at the beginning of this month, said André Mostert, head of community services for the Kathu municipality.

"We had a study done by the University of Pretoria three years ago that said we should take out the deadwood," said Mostert.

"I don't think taking away the habitat of insects is really the main issue, there's part of the veld where wood isn't collected for them.

"The guys who concentrate on the environment can be a bit one-sided."?

Gert Bosch, Iscor's environmental manager at Sishen, says the company is looking into stopping the contract. "In most of the big parks, the tendency is to stop clearing of dead wood, and I'm confident we will get there." Error: Unable to read footer file.